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Thursday, March 17, 2011

Maximum Wash Temperature for Liquinox

Question:

What is the maximum wash temperature for Liquinox? At this maximum temperature is there an accelerated breakdown of detergent?

Answer:

Liquinox is heat stable all the way to boiling at standard temperature and pressure conditions. From a practical standpoint, there are some detergency mechanisms that begin to break down mechanistically as you approach boiling. Emulsions begin to become less stable as you approach within a couple degrees of boiling. If emulsifying is not a critical cleaning mechanism, this may not be relevant to you. Maintaining a hot temperature and keeping water from evaporating is also a practical consideration as far as maximum temperature is concerned. As you approach boiling, the rates of evaporation of water increase and it becomes more important to add make-up water in order to maintain a controlled concentration of Liquinox. It is also of course energy intensive to maintain a near boiling solution. As you approach boiling, corrosion mechanisms are at their peak, so sometimes it does not pay to approach boiling temperatures from a substrate stability standpoint. From a practical standpoint, you would not typically use Liquinox much above 95 deg C (200 deg F). With that said, there are unique applications we are aware of that employ boiling Liquinox for small parts washing, i.e. used in jewelry making where parts are dipped into a pot of boiling Liquinox and the end user has to periodically add make-up water to compensate for water evaporation.